The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  Another surprise awaited Basil when he reached the banqueting hall. A table had been placed behind the couch of Nero, and on it were the five models he had made of the Emperor. It was the first time they had been put on display, and he wondered about the reason for showing them on this particular evening. He was conscious also of a stirring of pride. Perhaps he was to be singled out for some kind of honor.

  He felt a lift of spirits as he glanced about the lofty, resounding hall with its enormous pillars that had been raised to the glory of Augustus, the first of the emperors. For three weeks he had lived in this atmosphere of greatness, a greatness that had dwindled and become tarnished and tawdry. He had been a success. The Emperor still babbled about him with undiminished confidence. People were talking about him, he knew, quoting the things Nero said, calling him the little genius. No matter what the future might bring, this was something he would always remember, that he had won respect for his capacity in the bitter jealousies of the halls of Nero.

  Having won the full approval of the Emperor and the sophisticates about him, Basil felt he could afford to rest on his laurels. It was time for him to be going. He had other work to do that pressed on his consciousness. He wanted to be back with Deborra, making up to her for his past blindness. He wondered if this might not be the right occasion to ask the consent of Nero to his withdrawal from court. He decided that, should the Emperor prove in an amiable mood, he would take the risk of asking.

  For the first time he indulged in the general practice of wandering about the long hall with its many levels and its constant interruption of steps, where the guests were already reclining on their couches. The company was more brilliant than usual. The women seemed to have known that the amber-haired Poppaea, reclining in a sulky, silken boredom beside her imperial mate, would take this occasion to set off her warm brown eyes with her fabulous jeweled earrings. At any rate, they had arrayed themselves brilliantly. Their arms were covered with bracelets and their fingers were stiff with rings. They were proving quite careless with their lower draperies, for at this season they still wore their garters on bare flesh and were anxious to show the rubies and opals that nestled in the bands of black velour or silk.

  Basil noticed also that there were amethyst drinking cups at nearly all places, which meant that the guests had brought their own with them. The table appointments at the palace had fallen into an eclipse of shoddiness during the reign of Claudius, and from this there had been no revival. Amethyst cups protected the users from intoxication and so were considered essential.

  Simon the Magician, occupying his usual place in a sardonic silence, was one to be avoided; Basil did not want to be recognized as the youth who had gone to him to have an evil spirit cast out. He saw the victorious general, Flavius, in the relative obscurity of a side couch, the penalty for proving dull and unresponsive. Helena was beside a handsome young man with dull eyes, attired in the rich trappings of the Praetorian Guard. She carefully avoided meeting his glance as he strolled by.

  Nero, it became evident at once, was in an amiable mood. He sang with great restraint after the serving of the first course. He sang again, with less restraint and a tendency to overact, after the second course. Everyone applauded madly, and he beamed with gratification and puffed out his great thick chest. There was a feeling of easiness and satisfaction in the air because of this, but at the same time there was also an undercurrent of fear. The place reserved for Tigellinus was empty. Basil asked himself the question that all others in the hall were raising: What dark matters kept the police head away?

  The dessert had been brought in, consisting of huge platters of fruit and nuts and dishes of gold heaped with luscious honey cakes and trays on which were spread out tarts of such flakiness that the mouths of the nearly satiated diners opened again in greedy anticipation. There was a pause. Two gladiators had come into the hall and were standing in the open space beneath the flight of twenty marble steps that led up to where Nero sat. They had their short blunt swords in their hands and were ready to set about the business of slashing and cutting at each other. Darius, as master of ceremonies, did not raise his baton, however, for the carnage to begin. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, his eyes turned to the high arch where swinging doors closed off the passage leading to the kitchens.

  Without warning these doors were flung back and a blare of sound was heard, the high whine of the pipes, the mad thrumming of strings, the beating of drums, voices raised in a rolling chant. A procession began to unwind itself into the hall. Acrobats were in the lead, turning handsprings and leaping high into the air and shouting, “Hup! Hup!” in excited voices. After them came dancers, one at a time, each attired to represent a great figure from the Roman past or a god straying from Olympus; each with a set pantomime to heighten the illusion. The musicians followed, and the drummers. Then four slaves in red and white, with red leather straps across their shoulders, carried in the pastry cage. Tall candles had been lighted at the corners, the canaries in the upper cage were singing ecstatically, and the candy bells jingled with each move.

  The cage was carried to the space below Nero and there deposited on the floor. As soon as it touched the marble the pastry door swung open and a green-and-yellow Juli-Juli flew out. She wafted her wings up and down with quick movements to simulate flight. When the force that had launched the gay figure from the cage was exhausted, she came to rest on her small bare feet at the base of the ascending stairs.

  The dance that followed was far removed from the stiff pantomiming of the professional dancers. Using her canary wings gracefully, her chin held high, Juli-Juli drifted about like thistledown, while the musicians played a soft air and the drummers came in with no more than an occasional soft beat. She was so light in her movements that she came close to flying indeed, and some of the guests raised the query among themselves as to whether Simon the Magician would do better. The dancer came to a breathless stop beside Darius, who had remained at the foot of the steps.

  The applause was loud and sustained and counterpointed with demands for an encore. Nero had risen to a sitting position, the better to see, causing an ominous creaking in the frame that was as dilapidated as all the other furnishings of the palace. He said in a gratified voice, “It has been a great pleasure.” Even the languid Poppaea had joined in the applause.

  Darius placed a hand on the little dancer’s shoulder and waited. When the noise had subsided, he addressed the Emperor.

  “O Caesar, this young performer who has appeared before you for the first time has another dance that would be different. It would be quite different indeed, O Caesar. It is such a departure from the accepted ways that it could only be introduced to your attention as an innovation, even as an experiment.”

  “A departure from the accepted ways?” Nero’s bare feet had touched the floor and he seemed on the point of rising. “There is nothing I like better. Let us watch this experiment, Master Darius.”

  “The dancer would require——” The hand of the master of entertainment on Juli-Juli’s shoulder conveyed a message. She stooped, took the skirt of her flowing green tunic in one hand and raised it a few inches to display the bareness of her feet. “It would require, O Caesar, the use of sandals.”

  Nero looked down at his own sandals, which had been placed by the side of the royal couch when one of the slaves had laved his feet in the perfumed snow water. They were plain, perhaps the plainest in the hall, for he had never conformed to the custom in Rome to walk on soles of gold and silver, sometimes inlaid with precious stones. He looked down at his broad wooden footwear, and a gratified grin spread over his face at the originality of the conception that had come to him.

  “She needs sandals?” The royal voice was pitched high so that everyone in the room could share in the airy flight of his fancy. “Would her feet feel unworthy and falter in their steps if they were fitted into the sandals that have protected the feet of Caesar? Or would they be inspired to an even greater nimbleness? It is an interesting
point.” He looked in the direction of his mentor. “What do you think, Petronius?”

  “It is an amusing conceit, O Caesar,” responded the suave voice of Petronius. “I am certain that the sandals, having known the touch of divinity, would infuse the dancer’s feet with some of the divine fire.”

  “Take them to her!” cried Nero.

  A servant appeared at once to obey this order. Juli-Juli sat herself down on the bottom of the marble steps and proceeded to strap the sandals to her feet. People rose from their couches and pressed forward to watch. She looked very small at the base of the imposing stair, so small that it was almost as though they were watching a pretty kitten at play. Her yellow cock’s-comb cap had fallen from her head and lay beside her on the floor.

  The sandals of Nero were very large and the feet of Juli-Juli were very small. It took a great deal of tugging and pulling to make the straps secure. When she stood up and took a tentative step, they clattered alarmingly.

  “Can you dance in them?” asked Darius in an anxious whisper, fearing that this daring move he had planned out in his mind was due to fail.

  “Yes, master,” she whispered back. “The looser they are, the more they will clatter. That is what we want.”

  She stood still for a moment, and her glance went up to the raised floor where the great Nero sat. A sudden panic swept over her. What would the ruler of the world think of this new dance she was to perform? Would it seem to him undignified, perhaps even cheap and common?

  “Master,” she whispered, her cornflower-blue eyes turning to him in alarm, “I am afraid. I do not think I can move my feet.”

  “Come, child!” Darius was seriously concerned. “Dance as you do in the practice hall, forgetting everything. Smile. Sing, if necessary. Just be natural, Juli-Juli.”

  She made an effort, and her feet achieved a first step. She looked up at the master of entertainment with a plaintive smile. “Here I go! The slave who may shock the guests of Caesar. Pray, master.”

  All public dancing was performed with bare feet or with the oiled-skin coverings Juli-Juli had used in practice. The first clip, clip, clop of her sandaled feet on the hard floor, therefore, roused the company to startled attention. It was new, it was strange, but there was something infectious about the rhythmic regularity of the sound. People began to nod their heads to the even clatter of the loose sandals and to beat time with their own feet. It was so infectious that Caesar could be seen tapping on the table at his side to the beat of the wooden soles. Even the dignified head of Petronius nodded in unison.

  The control and precision of the diminutive dancer were shown to best advantage when she began to climb the marble steps at the top of which divinity sat. Her feet touched each step in perfect time, clip, clip, clop, clippety, clip, clop, but when she reached the one immediately below the top, she hesitated as though conscious of her unworthiness, and then danced backward to the lower level, never missing a beat. This had such an effect on the audience, who were telling each other that there had never been anything like it before, that they began to encourage her loudly to go all the way up, Nero joining in.

  But Juli-Juli had other plans. Dancing with gay and impish gestures, she drifted about among the tables and couches. Male guests reached out inebriated arms to capture her, but she always succeeded in eluding them and never once missed in the accurate beating of the wooden soles. Once she seized a cap from a matron that contained a brilliant jeweled pin and put it on her own head, then threw it to the owner on the next time past. She reached for a scarf from a dusky beauty and waved it about her head as she danced before tossing it back. A fatuous senator, smiling like the full moon, took the wreath of laurel from his brow and offered it to her. She put it on her golden hair at a rakish angle and did a circuit of the hall before returning it to him.

  Finally she came to the climax of her dance. She paused almost imperceptibly beside Darius and whispered: “I am going to sing. I am going to sing to the high gods of the earth up there above us!”

  She began then to repeat her performance on the stairs, dancing up hesitantly, retreating hurriedly; and as she danced she intoned in a voice audible to those above:

  “Pe-tron-i-us! Pe-tron-i-us! Will you say I am guilty of a breach of etiquette?” Clip, clip, clop. “Tig-ell-i-nus! Tig-ell-i-nus! Will you put me in a prison cell if to the top I get?” Clip, clip, clop. “Nero Caesar; Nero Caesar! Sitting there above us like the sun up in the sky. Nero Caesar! Nero Caesar! Will you feel too much affronted if a new and awe-struck dancer dares to reach an elevation quite so high?” Clip, clip, clop.

  Then she dashed suddenly toward the stairs and mounted them to double time, clippety, clippety, clippety, clippety—clop! She stood at last on the highest level, her head held down, her yellow wings drooping, as though she were made of wax and had begun to melt already in the great light of the divinity that blazed up there.

  Nero did not need the shouts of approval of his guests, nor the slightly amused smile on the face of Petronius, before expressing his own reactions to her performance. His face quite pink with excitement, his broad bare feet spread far apart, he called out, “Never have I been more entertained.” Then he glanced about him, his eyes coming to rest on the baldness and waxiness of Petronius. “This kind of dancing,” he declared, “is as new as the children who are being born in Rome this very minute. Listen, Petronius. Listen, all of you. Listen, the world! I have coined a name for it. The Dance of the Sandals of Caesar!”

  The applause broke out anew, being directed now at the Emperor in loud admiration for the aptness of his phrasemaking. This led him on to indulge in another gesture. “I desire,” he announced, “that these sandals be dipped in gold and hung up in a place of honor. As a reminder,” he added, “that it was with them that this venture into a new phase of the art of dancing was made in the presence of Caesar.”

  An interruption occurred at this point. The missing Tigellinus came into the hall, followed by one of his officials. He strode up the twenty marble steps without any hesitation and stationed himself before the royal couch.

  “There has been trouble of which you should be informed, O Caesar,” he said. “Quintus Clarius has been murdered. His body was found early this evening in his own private bath. He had been strangled to death with a knotted towel.”

  “Has the assassin been caught?” asked the Emperor.

  “We have not yet succeeded in identifying the murderer,” answered Tigellinus. “It seems certain that the deed was committed by one of his slaves. They are all being held in chains for questioning. It will not be hard to get at the truth. It may be that the guilty slave was paid to do away with his master. There are stories being circulated”—he gave a significant glance in the direction of Petronius—“that bear this out.”

  If such stories were being circulated, it was more than likely that Tigellinus himself had been responsible for starting them. Quintus Clarius was one of the wealthiest men in Rome and an active supporter of the Praetorian captain in the struggle between the two factions. The hostile dark eyes of the captain darted again at Petronius.

  The latter, fully aware of the implication in what his rival had said, did not show any concern. In a voice that carried a faintly veiled note of amused scorn at the hint of his involvement he said: “Quintus Clarius was known to be a hard master. Does that not offer a hint as to the motive for this vile crime?”

  “The truth will be brought to light,” declared Tigellinus. “And the motive, without a doubt. The slaves are being put to the torture.” He added with a contemptuous gesture of his hands: “They are a miserable lot. It is hard to believe the reports I have of them. It is said that they are Christians without a single exception.”

  “You say they are all Christians?” Nero, whose interest had been somewhat perfunctory up to this point, blazed into a passion. “Is it not true that he had upward of a hundred slaves? Can it be that in a single household there are one hundred converts to this insidious, this unclean belief! Tigel
linus, this is indeed serious. Are we like to be suffocated in this rising wave that comes up like the poisonous gases from the swamps?” His face had turned a furious red, his eyes were distended. “Have all of these slaves killed!” he commanded. “It is the only thing to do. We shall then be certain that the guilty one has suffered for his crime; and as for the rest, we will be well rid of them.”

  It was clear at once that this pronouncement had not found favor with the company. Some of the guests were too intoxicated to do more than stare up at him with blank faces, but with all the rest there was evidence that they had heard the imperial dictum with surprise and a sense of horror.

  Tigellinus was too insensitive, or too indifferent, to understand or care. “It is true, O Caesar, that something must be done to stop the spread of this faith,” he said. “You have given me an order that may seem drastic. But there is this to be considered: the execution of these slaves would serve as a notice to the world, and to the people of Rome in particular, that they must not accept this heresy.”

  Petronius had been more observant. He decided to make himself the spokesman of protest. “Your desire to check the spread of this curious religion is natural and commendable, O Caesar,” he said. “I am not well versed in the laws and so my opinion may not carry any weight with you. This, nevertheless, I feel quite strongly, and there will be many in Rome to feel as I do that this particular crime does not warrant such a sweeping measure of retribution. People will say that the execution of one hundred people, slaves though they are, is not in accord with the principles of Roman justice. They are not criminals, they are suspects only. There is this to be considered also. The slaves are valuable. They constitute, no doubt, a considerable part of the estate of the deceased man. What of his heirs? Are they to be the losers, or will they be compensated for their loss from the public funds?”